gestural


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ges·ture

 (jĕs′chər)
n.
1.
a. A motion of the limbs or body made to express or help express thought or to emphasize speech.
b. The action of making such a motion or motions: communicated solely by gesture.
2. An act or a remark made as a formality or as a sign of intention or attitude: sent flowers as a gesture of sympathy.
v. ges·tured, ges·tur·ing, ges·tures
v.intr.
To make gestures.
v.tr.
To show, express, or direct by gestures: gestured her disapproval.

[Middle English, from Medieval Latin gestūra, bearing, from Latin gestus, past participle of gerere, to carry, carry on, act.]

ges′tur·al adj.
ges′tur·al·ly adv.
ges′tur·er n.
Synonyms: gesture, gesticulation, sign, signal
These nouns denote an expressive, meaningful bodily motion: a gesture of approval; frantic gesticulations to get help; made a sign for silence; gave the signal to advance.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Adj.1.gestural - used of the language of the deaf
communicatory, communicative - able or tending to communicate; "was a communicative person and quickly told all she knew"- W.M.Thackeray
2.gestural - being other than verbal communication; "the study of gestural communication"; "art like gesture is a form of nonverbal expression"
communicatory, communicative - able or tending to communicate; "was a communicative person and quickly told all she knew"- W.M.Thackeray
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations

gestural

[ˈdʒestʃərəl] ADJ [language] → gestual
Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005
References in periodicals archive ?
Like many artists who were enamored with abstraction, Carating started as a gestural painter.
An indelible metonym for modernism, it is, as they say, overdetermined, so much so that to make a gestural mark today is to court a certain generic quality--and the nagging sense that whatever you're doing has, regrettably, been done before.
Summary: On view are her gestural portraits of people around her--friends, family and many well known figures such as JFK
Gestural artwork, the other side of Carating's creative coin
However, pectoral appendages also function in social communication for the purposes of making sounds that we simply refer to as non-vocal sonic signals, and for gestural signalling."
Instead, gestural dynamism is simply punctuated by moments of flat color, mostly white, that become mere points on which the eye might pause amid this continuous fluidity.
A study of captive chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, suggests that this "hemispheric lateralization" for language may have its evolutionary roots in the gestural communication of our common ancestors.
Voice and gesture are at the core of this class and most of the other classes I teach." She calls this process building a gestural vocabulary.
The application of this screen, however, is justified on more than merely gestural or superficial grounds.
In the study of captive chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center (Atlanta, Georgia), researchers have suggested that this "hemispheric lateralization" for language may have its evolutionary roots in the gestural communication of our common ancestors.